gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After years
of emptiness and dullness and suppression, she had
come suddenly, in the heyday of youth, into freedom
and power. She was mistress of herself, of great
domains and palaces; she was Queen of England.
Responsibilities and difficulties she might have, no
doubt, and in heavy measure; but one feeling dominated
and absorbed all others—the feeling of
joy. Everything pleased her. She was in high
spirits from morning till night. Mr. Creevey,
grown old now, and very near his end, catching a glimpse
of her at Brighton, was much amused, in his sharp fashion,
by the ingenuous gaiety of “little Vic.”
“A more homely little being you never beheld,
when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying
to be always more so. She laughs in real earnest,
opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not
very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily
as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles...
She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural
a way as to disarm anybody.” But it was
not merely when she was laughing or gobbling that
she enjoyed herself; the performance of her official
duties gave her intense satisfaction. “I
really have immensely to do,” she wrote in her
Journal a few days after her accession; “I receive
so many communications from my Ministers, but I like
it very much.” And again, a week later,
“I repeat what I said before that I have so
many communications from the Ministers, and from me
to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day,
that I have always a very great deal to do. I
delight in this work.” Through the girl’s
immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the woman
were pushing themselves into existence with eager
velocity, with delicious force.
One detail of her happy situation deserves particular
mention. Apart from the splendour of her social
position and the momentousness of her political one,
she was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament
met, an annuity of L385,000 was settled upon her.
When the expenses of her household had been discharged,
she was left with L68,000 a year of her own.
She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster,
which amounted annually to over L27,000. The first
use to which she put her money was characteristic:
she paid off her father’s debts. In money
matters, no less than in other matters, she was determined
to be correct. She had the instincts of a man
of business; and she never could have borne to be
in a position that was financially unsound.
With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days
passed merrily enough. And each day hinged upon
Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us, with undiminished
clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the
early months of her reign—a life satisfactorily
regular, full of delightful business, a life of simple
pleasures, mostly physical—riding, eating,
dancing—a quick, easy, highly unsophisticated
life, sufficient unto itself. The light of the